“It’s like trying to buy bread in Poland in the 1980s,” Jeff Mudge tells the Pioneer Press.

It’s funny he chose the analogy because several paragraphs into the weekend Pioneer Press’ story about how long it takes to get a driver’s license road test, I was thinking, “this sounds like the old Eastern Bloc days.”

Mudge, of Gem Lake, is one of the parents who’ve been getting up well before dawn — in some cases, 2 a.m. — to get to the testing station in time to snag one of the few appointments available. He and his kids drove to New Ulm and camped out to get a road test.

Minnesota has 93 testing stations but not enough employees to handle the number of people looking for a license. They’re teens who have turned down job offers because parents can’t haul them back and forth, and they’re college kids who are heading off to school in a few weeks.

“Last Friday, I had 53 cars in line,” Driver and Vehicle Services regional supervisor Mark Larson told the PiPress. “That was the highest we’ve had all summer. I tell them feel free to swing by again in the afternoon, but it all depends on how many appointments don’t show up. Yesterday, I only had two no-shows, so it took until 4 p.m. to get through the 15 people in the lot.”

A Department of Public Safety spokesman says while they’d like to make the situation go away, it’s up to the Legislature.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories.

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It isn’t really up the legislature though, is it? They appropriate funds to the agency and the agency chooses how to allocate them. It is even possible the agency chooses to have not enough people testing road tests on purpose because it is forward facing, in order to get more money.

Gary F

I played that “game” a few years ago. Really tough on parents trying to schedule kids after school stuff with busy work schedules 2 months a head of time. Two months to get in at the Eagan location for my son.

One just needs to look into Department of Public Safety’s budget. They have plenty of nice to have programs that can be cut back to allow for more needed programs.

But then, lots of folks want to be more like Europe, so there you go folks.

Jon

It would be nice to be more like Europe in how they don’t hand out licenses to everyone with a pulse, their respective departments actually care about public safety.